After his return to town, we met frequently, and I continued the
practice of making notes of his conversation, though not with so much
assiduity as I wish I had done. At this time, indeed, I had a sufficient
excuse for not being able to appropriate so much time to my Journal; for
General Paoli[209], after Corsica had been overpowered by the monarchy of
France, was now no longer at the head of his brave countrymen, but
having with difficulty escaped from his native island, had sought an
asylum in Great Britain; and it was my duty, as well as my pleasure, to
attend much upon him[210]. Such particulars of Johnson's conversation at
this period as I have committed to writing, I shall here introduce,
without any strict attention to methodical arrangement. Sometimes short
notes of different days shall be blended together, and sometimes a day
may seem important enough to be separately distinguished.

He said, he would not have Sunday kept with rigid severity and gloom,
but with a gravity and simplicity of behaviour[211].

I told him that David Hume had made a short collection of
Scotticisms[212]. 'I wonder, (said Johnson,) that _he_ should find them.'

He would not admit the importance of the question concerning the
legality of general warrants[213]. 'Such a power' (he observed,) 'must be
vested in every government, to answer particular cases of necessity; and
there can be no just complaint but when it is abused, for which those
who administer government must be answerable. It is a matter of such
indifference, a matter about which the people care so very little, that
were a man to be sent over Britain to offer them an exemption from it at
a halfpenny a piece, very few would purchase it.' This was a specimen of
that laxity of talking, which I have heard him fairly acknowledge[214];
for, surely, while the power of granting general warrants was supposed